The treatment of blood borne cancers with conventional therapies such as cytotoxic drugs and irradiation has not been as effective as desired. A major drawback has been that such treatments can destroy healthy as well as diseased cells.
One way to kill cancer cells is through the natural phenomenon of apoptosis, also referred to as programmed cell death. Apoptosis is a critical homeostatic mechanism in the body to maintain the necessary proportion of cell proliferation and cell death. The problem with conventional agents that induce apoptosis is that these agents also may have deleterious systemic effects.